


Hand In the Fire Heart On Display

by SaintOfLostCauses



Series: But You're Younger and Smaller [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Younger Draco, draco is high strung and over dramatic but his mother loves him anyway, familial blackmail is just good business practice, ginny is the sensible weasley, he also regularly tunes out other people talking, hermione is the mom friend, luna is the real mvp, so is crabbe, which kind of makes him a terrible narrator but whatever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-01-27 21:38:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12591096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintOfLostCauses/pseuds/SaintOfLostCauses
Summary: Narcissa gives Draco a flat, mildly unimpressed look over the rim of her tea cup. “At a disadvantage for what precisely, Draco dear?” She asks, and then hardly gives him the opportunity to answer before adding, “It’s not as if you’ll be attending class with the second years Draco, you’ll be spending time with other children your age.”“That’s the point, Mother.” Draco tells her laboriously. “I won’t have any classes with Harry Potter, how am I ever going to manage to trick him into becoming my best friend?”“Trick, darling?”Draco stuffs a whole biscuit into his mouth and chews mutinously, rather than answer her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A story born from the idea that Narcissa was never quite as excited about the whole idea of raising a child under the reign of a Dark Lord as Lucius was, and had Draco a year later than the original canon as a result.

It’s a whimsical notion and hardly one he’s going to admit to entertaining anywhere his father might be able to hear, but for weeks surrounding his tenth birthday, Draco fantasizes about Hogwarts sending him his invitation a year early.

“All of my friends are starting _this_ year, Mother.” Draco doesn’t whine when Narcissa catches him at hovering around open windows with a blatant look of yearning on his face and forces him to sit down for a soothing cup of Kava tea. Malfoys don’t _whine_. They don’t exactly hold their tongue when they find themselves in a particularly disagreeable situation either, though. “ _Harry Potter_ is starting this year, I’m going to be a year behind everyone else. I’ll be at a _disadvantage_.”

He says the last word like it’s dirty. For a Malfoy, it more or less is.

Narcissa gives Draco a flat, mildly unimpressed look over the rim of her tea cup. She’s never exactly approved of Draco’s penchant for the dramatic. Nobody in his life really appreciates him as much as they should. “At a disadvantage for _what_ precisely, Draco dear?” She asks, and then hardly gives him the opportunity to answer before adding, “It’s not as if you’ll be attending class with the second years Draco, you’ll be spending time with other children your age.”

“That’s the _point_ , Mother.” Draco tells her laboriously. “I won’t have any classes with Harry Potter, how am I ever going to manage to trick him into becoming my best friend?”

“Trick, darling?”

Draco stuffs a whole biscuit into his mouth and chews mutinously, rather than answer her.

“Draco.” Narcissa says gently, setting aside her teacup to meet Draco’s eyes directly. “Is that what this is all about? Are you worried that you aren’t going to make any friends at Hogwarts?”

He swallows dryly (he’s regretting that biscuit now, Mother really needs to stop letting the house elves buy digestives) and reaches out to pour more coconut milk into his own cup for something to do, firmly avoiding his mother’s all too knowing stare. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You’ll have Gregory and Vincent, dear. They’ll only be a year ahead of you.” Mother reminds him, and Draco hardly thinks that bringing them up now is fair. Crabbe had already received his own Hogwarts invitation, and Goyle was sure to get his in the coming week. And that meant that he wouldn’t be able to see either of them for nearly an entire year, unless they decided to come home for the holidays (and why would they even want to, they’d be at _Hogwarts_ with _Harry Potter_ , why on earth would they ever want to leave?)

Attempting to explain any of this to his mother is clearly an effort in futility though. She just doesn’t get it. Parents never do. Draco drains his cup and makes an effort not to pull a face at the taste. He still doesn’t understand why he can’t just have a nice Chamomile like her.

He was _not_ high strung.

Narcissa sips at her own Chamomile and tells him lightly, “Maybe you could try writing to them while they’re at school this year, if you’re worried about feeling lonely. I’m sure the boys would be thrilled to get an owl from you, dear.”

Draco is reasonably certain that mothers are naturally gifted at legilimency, or at the very least his own is, but he refuses to let her see how spot on she is right now. She’ll know anyway, regardless of whether or not he admits to anything, and at least this way they can both stoically allow him to cling to the tattered shreds of his pride simply by not acknowledging it out loud. “I suppose it would be a kindness to them both,” Draco says in what he hopes is a magnanimous manner. “They’re sure to be lost without me, after all.”

“Of course, dear.” His mother smiles serenely at him from across the table, and Draco shoves another three biscuits in his mouth at once only to regret it almost instantly.

“Mother.” He rasps a good five minutes later, after he’s finally managed to choke down the last of the digestives. “You really _must_ speak to the house elves about the biscuits.”

“Have more tea, Draco.” Narcissa tells him simply, which Draco rather takes to be a firm ‘no’.

* * *

 

Writing to Crabbe and Goyle proves to be an exercise in patience, more often than not. Or rather, getting them to write anything useful back is anyway.

Neither boy was especially verbose in person, and this apparently translated into astonishingly uninformative letters where, even after months and months of careful prompting on Draco’s part, had only resulted in learning that Harry Potter was in Gryffindor and very good at catching small balls in the sky.

(Draco assumes this is a reference to Quidditch, for his own sanity.)

Between lessons with various tutors, tea with his mother, and doing battle with muggle flying machines on the house broom, Draco steadily places orders for the primary first year texts piecemeal as Crabbe and Goyle owl him to say that a troll had broken into the school, and did he know which constellation shared the star Alpheratz with the square of Pegasus asterism, or the laws governing Animagus registration?

If nothing else, the practice is doing wonders for his penmanship, and patiently coaching Crabbe and Goyle through magical theory is certain to prepare him sufficiently for starting Hogwarts himself in the coming year.

Mother looks immeasurably smug whenever he receives a new letter, but it manages to settle his nerves better than any measure of tea ever could and he decides not to hold it against her _too_ much.

* * *

 

Draco nearly hugs the house elf that brings him his Hogwarts invitation when it comes, before remembering that the portraits had a tendency to gossip with his father when he did things they found unseemly, and hugs were almost certain to fall within the purview.

Instead he, rather benevolently he felt, informs the house elf that the next time he needs to punish himself for thinking poorly of Lucius (and with Father it was really only a matter of time) he could come to Draco instead for instructions. Dobby clearly deserves a reward for his timely delivery, and for the fact that on more than one occasion he’s snuck Draco chocolate biscuits on the sly.

“Mother,” Draco announces triumphantly once he’s finally managed to track her down, wielding the invitation like a weapon or, on second thought upon getting a good look at her face, a shield. “It’s time to go to Diagon Alley for my school supplies.”

“It’s three in the morning, Draco.” Narcissa explains patiently from where she’s sitting up in bed and staring across the dim expanse of her bedroom almost despairingly. “None of the shops will even be open right now.”

“Ah.” He says faintly, and then glances suddenly about the room as if he’s only just noticed where they were. He might have been suffering from a touch of sleep deprivation at the moment. Just a bit. “Father’s… not here?” Draco asks tentatively, not putting it past Lucius Malfoy at all to suddenly loom up out of the darkness with ominous disapproval.

His mother softly sighs. “He’s probably in the basement again, you know your father.”

“Ah.” Draco says again, and then finds himself at a loss to say anything else.

“Goodnight Draco.” Mother says leadingly, giving him a way out.

“Goodnight Mother.” He says in relief, and turns to leave her alone in the dark with her thoughts.

(Or maybe that was just him.)

* * *

 

“On second thought,” Draco says carefully when Father informs him the next day that they’ll be making a stop off in Knockturn Alley before taking care of his school shopping, “we don’t have to go today. I already have most of the required reading, there’s no rush really.”

The look Mother gives him speaks _measures_. All she says out loud however is, “You know the defense against the dark arts texts are different this year.”

Which is. True. And of course she remembers that, since it was only a few hours ago that he was complaining to her about all of the Lockhart books on the list and asking what was wrong with _last year’s_ reading, aside from the fact that it had apparently been assigned by a child murdering lunatic. (“Just don’t call the man that in front of your father, dear.” Narcissa warns him mildly, and “It was only attempted child murder after all, wasn’t it?”)

Draco’s never read a Lockhart book before, but he’s seen the man’s picture in the paper plenty of times and he’s pretty sure the thing _winked_ at him. Which was more than enough for the man to make it on his list, really. “Not to mention you’ve been begging us to let you get your wand a year early so you could get some practical experience before school starts.”

Also true. It’s pretty unfair of his mother to keep using his words against him like this. If he didn’t know any better he’d think she actually wanted him to get abducted in Knockturn Alley and have his body parts sold off as potion ingredients by people that knew his father well enough that the whole family got loyal customer discounts.

Mother was going to buy his eyeballs for a song, and the idea of him being _cheap_ was honestly the most terrifying part of this entire scenario.

“I am tasteful and expensive.” Draco insists softly, a mantra that he repeats daily to himself in the mirror as he’s getting ready.

“Of course you are, dear.” Narcissa says understandingly, and Draco charitably adjusts his opinion of her to at least insisting that the vendor charge her market value for his eyes. She was a Black after all, tasteful and expensive might as well have been on their coat of arms (Draco thinks it might have been, up until that mess with Sirius - there was nothing tasteful about a Gryffindor, after all). “Which is why your father is going to buy you something nice in Diagon Alley if you’re well behaved while he’s running his own errands.”

Situational bribery was the absolute worst. Mostly because it tended to work so well on Draco. “Something expensive.” He stipulates.

“Draco please.” His mother says serenely. “As if that was ever in doubt.”

* * *

 

“Touch nothing, Draco.” Lucius tells Draco when they step into Borgin and Burkes, and Draco quietly considers a glass eye in the case in front of him and the fact that it appears to be gleaming wetly, before assiduously shoving his hands in his pockets and sniffing in what he hopes is a delicate manner reminiscent of his mother.

He glances about the shop warily, somewhat hesitant to bring the matter up here lest Father suddenly get the notion that eleven was quite old enough to start mucking about with… Draco blanches and skitters back from a stand prominently displaying what looked to be a _severed hand_ , and then carefully checks to make sure that his father hasn’t witnessed any of the display. “When Mother said you would buy me a present, she didn’t mean here, did she?” Draco attempts not to sound _too_ concerned by the prospect.

He hardly sees what good a cursed necklace is going to do in making him any friends at school though.

“A racing broom.” Lucius answers shortly, clearly impatient to start his business with the shopkeep.

Draco’s countenance brightens instantly, despite the fact that an array of human skulls appear to be leering at him currently. “There’s a new model out.” He says, pleased, and then, “Do you think Hogwarts will let me bring it with me though? Only I think I remember reading that first years weren’t allowed.”

Lucius grits his teeth, and Draco takes a moment to quietly mourn for the health of his father’s teeth before he’s saying, “If they’re going to let Harry Potter join the Quidditch team his first year, they honestly don’t have a leg to stand on in regards to giving other first years a chance to do the same.”

Father’s tone is his patented ‘or else’ one (he only ever really approved of special treatment if he was the one receiving it) and Draco perhaps wisely chooses to ignore the rather opportune jumping off point to bring up his letters to Crabbe and Goyle and their rather desperate need to try bringing _context_ into what they write back to him. He just nods mutely and steps back deeper into the store when Mr. Borgin finally decides to make an appearance from the back room, the two very quickly falling into a discussion of Basement Things that Draco would honestly prefer not to be involved with anyway.

He’s _eleven_. He just wants to go to magic school, make a friend in his own year, and maybe join a Quidditch team if they let him. Basement Things can stay in the basement for now.

While he still has a choice on the matter.

A dark, looming sort of cabinet over Draco’s left shoulder sneezes violently, and he takes a moment from him brooding to say, “Bless you,” lightly, before having second thoughts upon further consideration, and chooses to scream instead.

“Draco honestly,” Lucius snaps without bothering to look up from where he’s leaning in over a curled parchment list of BT (abbreviated for ease of reference) with Mr. Borgin. “Do try to comport yourself with _some_ measure of grace.”

“But--” The cabinet door opens just enough to reveal a boy a little older than him covered in soot with a finger pressed pleadingly up to his lips, and Draco decides that either the cabinet is a magical artifact that eats filthy children (in which case Draco is perfectly safe) or the boy is simply hiding which, well, Draco can hardly blame him if he is. The boy looks utterly out of his depths, and he feels a strange sort of empathy for him, all things considered. “--I… stubbed my toe?” He finishes somewhat weakly, but the boy looks relieved and his father has started talking poisons with Mr. Borgin with only a distracted:

“Just don’t break anything, Draco.”

So Draco’s pretty sure he managed to more or less get away with it. Perhaps his improvisational skills really were improving, he would have to tell Mother the good news (she despaired quite often of him and how poor he was at lying, but it hardly seemed like the sort of thing he should be proud of being good at, and what did he have to lie about anyhow, strange boys in strange cabinets aside).

Now however, Draco is determined to get a better idea of what it is exactly that he had gotten away with. He takes one more cautionary look over his shoulder to make sure his father’s attention is sufficiently distracted, takes a deep, fortifying breath, and steps into the cabinet with the boy, closing the door again quickly behind him.

“Hello.” Draco says dully, for lack of anything better to say to break up the sudden and awkward silence that falls between them (his etiquette lessons have not adequately prepared him for this moment). “They’re not selling _you_ in this shop, are they?” He asks with some small measure of mounting horror because he honestly wouldn’t put it past Mr. Borgin to try.

“No!” The boy gives him a wide-eyed look behind broken glasses, and then an even wider look over Draco’s shoulder at the closed cabinet door like he was worried that his shouting would bring Lucius Malfoy down upon them like a furious pit viper.

Which honestly, putting aside the fact that his father was far more likely to command Mr. Borgin to exert himself in such a manner than do the work himself, was highly unlikely for the simple fact that the topic of poisons could keep Father occupied for _hours_ if he let it, which was rather the reason that Draco had wanted to go shopping with his mother today instead.

When Lucius fails to appear, the boy elaborates for Draco a bit more softly, shoulders hunched miserably up around his ears. “I, uh, got lost on the floo network when I was trying to get to Diagon Alley.” He flushes just brightly enough for Draco to get a glimpse at it under all that soot. “Guess I mumbled my words.”

“How terrible.” Draco says with the air of someone who has upon numerous occasions in the past ‘accidentally’ said Diagon Alley when he was meant to follow his father to Knockturn instead. “You’re not too far off, honestly.” Spotting the faint glimmering chance of escape for what it is and refusing to let it slip through his fingers, he offers somewhat selfishly, “I could probably show you the way and get back before Father even notices I’m gone.”

There’s a good chance this boy goes to Hogwarts too (his English is a touch too natural for him to be visiting from Beauxbaton or Durmstrang after all) and starting off his first year with an older student being beholden to him is just good preparation, really.

This boy doesn’t look like he’s meant for BT anyway, and Draco holds out a hand and smiles in a carefully cultivated winsome manner (only for the whole effect to be spoiled by a sudden sneeze, and Mr. Borgin will _hear_ from him later about his cleaning treatments, there was simply no excuse for this much dust).

“Alright.” The boy says after a moment, returning Draco’s smile with his own tentative one and placing his hand in Draco’s.

“Ah.” Draco says almost regretfully, looking down at their joined hands with a baleful expression. “The soot.” That was going to be a hassle to scrub off later. He doesn’t let go though, just raises his free hand up to his mouth in a mirror of the boy’s gesture to him earlier. “Stay low and _touch nothing_.”

* * *

 

They don’t speak again until they’re outside on the street, and it’s the boy staring at the shop across the way with a window dressing of severed, shrunken heads with dawning horror and asking, “Are those…”

“Probably, yes.” Draco interrupts and tugs insistently on his hand to lead him down the alley with a low muttered, “Try not to meet anyone’s eyes, alive or dead it’s really all the same around here.”

Draco brushes quickly past a witch that calls his name and doesn’t stop.

“Do you know her?” The boy asks, craning his head around to look back at her and sending the both of them stumbling a bit in his distraction.

“Unfortunately.” Draco says grimly. She had a terrible habit of trying to pawn off counterfeit items on his mother. Which never _worked_ obviously, Malfoys were no fools, but the fact that she even bothers to try was simply unforgivable. “Ah, here we a--” They step out into the sun of Diagon Alley, and almost immediately Draco gets bowled over by what appears to be a breathing, padded wall. “Ouch.”

“HARRY!” The wall bellows and reaches out to lift the older boy bodily off the ground, and consequently Draco as well since they’ve yet to let go of each other’s hand. “What d’yeh think yeh were doin’ down there?”

“Hagrid.” The boy whose name is apparently Harry says with no small measure of relief, and then haltingly tries to explain about his floo mistake and Draco’s own involvement in his escape, while the giant man slaps heartily on his back and clears great plumes of soot from his hair and clothes which, Draco supposes, is an acceptable alternative to spelling the soot away.

Draco sways a bit on his feet and stares up at the man in mute terror when he turns his attention on him to thank him for taking care of Harry, and also, did he get lost down there too?

“Something like that.” He says without meeting Hagrid’s eyes. He had _felt_ lost in any case, it practically isn’t even a lie at all. Draco tactically widens his eyes and tries to look as small as possible under the behemoth’s considering stare (at least looking small isn’t any sort of particular challenge in the present company). He really hopes that his father hasn’t made a poor impression on this man at some time in the past, Draco looked far too much like Lucius for his comfort sometimes and at least Mother was pretty enough to distract people from uncharitable thoughts more often than not.

For a brief, terrifying moment Draco considers batting his eyes as well, before remembering how déclassé Mother found such behavior. Particularly with what looks to Draco to clearly be one of The Help. He twitches faintly and looks across at Harry instead.

Harry stares back at him with a confused, slightly concerned look, but doesn’t say anything to refute him either.

Hagrid frowns down at him, and Draco doesn’t even realize that he was holding his breath until he turns back to Harry and asks, “D’yeh come here by yerself?” and Draco lets out a low, relieved sigh and slinks behind Harry as much as he can manage with a kid that’s honestly not that much bigger than Draco to begin with. Public evisceration is _probably_ not something he has to worry about as much in Diagon Alley, but a human shield can’t hurt anyway.

A thin, sooty hand pats Draco comfortingly on the shoulder, and Draco doesn’t even care that the other boy is getting his clothes dirty.

“With the Weasleys.” Harry says with a shake of his head, and Draco frowns and tries to remember what it was his father had told him about the Weasleys.

Almost as if summoned, there’s a faint shout of “Harry!” to their left and he turns to see what looks like a river of red hair flowing up the cobblestone path towards them and, ah yes, now he remembers. Draco hunches down and attempts to hide even more fully behind Harry.

This is almost certainly going to go poorly for him.

The Weasley Patriarch stumbles to a stop in front of them with his gaggle of Hellions at his heel, and Draco is so desperately distracted by the man’s tragic bald spot that he doesn’t actually hear a word he says until Harry’s answering, “Knockturn Alley,” so Draco figures they were asking him where he’d come out instead.

“Excellent!” Draco’s never before witnessed a human being speak in stereo, but either the Weasleys have a set of twins to their name (and oh god, twins are _hereditary_ , there are going to be even more of these people down the line and Draco is already distinctly outnumbered) or there is a spell out there where you can animate your own reflection and Draco desperately needs to find it.

Strictly for humanitarian reasons, of course.

“We’ve never been allowed.” Another Weasley bemoans and, oh god, there are even _more_ Weasleys running up now, is there no end to them?

“I regret so many things.” Draco says with a low sound of despair. Harry laughs sharply in surprise, Draco shoves his shoulder lightly in retaliation, and suddenly every single Weasley eye is trained unerringly on the two of them, or rather, to be more specific, on Draco himself. This would be a very good time for Draco to know a few swear words, but no, that was _beneath_ them as a family (which was utter garbage, Draco has seen pictures of the family members that have wound up in Azkaban and Aunt Bellatrix looked like a woman who knew a thing or two about creative language).

“Who’s your friend, Harry?” Arthur Weasley (Draco _remembers_ now, and oh, Father is not going to be happy with him) asks in a voice that suggests he knows exactly who Draco is.

Draco willfully resists the urge to stick his tongue out at the man when Harry proudly introduces him with, “he helped me find my way out.”

He preens, and his smile only freezes a little on his face when the Weasley mother blinks at him in concern and asks, “what were you doing in such an awful place, dear?”

“He--” Harry starts, no doubt in _his_ mind helpful. But even if good intentions are only something that Draco is familiar with theoretically, he’s still well aware of some of the potentially condemning things about Draco’s father that Harry might have heard while he was hiding in that cabinet, and whatever personal feelings Draco has about being dragged out to Borgin and Burkes in the first place, he’s not going to set a poor, rabid ginger on his father.

“Trying not to touch anything.” Draco speaks quickly over Harry, without actually giving himself a chance to think up something a bit more clever to say. At least some hopeless, wild little lie hadn’t attempted to fall out of his mouth, he was self-aware enough to know that nobody would have believed him then. “Harry’s not the only one who’s had trouble with the Floo Network before.” He adds which is, strictly speaking, not a lie, but enough to have Harry turning his head and shooting Draco a marked look of concern that Draco chooses fiercely to ignore while a Mother (even a Mother so distinctly different from his own) is looking at him.

They can smell fear, he’s pretty sure. Mothers, that is. And Draco doesn’t want to be afraid, _shouldn’t_ be afraid when he’s finally going to Hogwarts, he refuses to let Father and his Basement Things ruin this for him.

So he takes a fortifying breath and chatters on about his first year of Hogwarts and how anxious and excited he is about the whole thing, mentions tea and biscuits and waiting at the window for the post to arrive, and maybe a little bit about all his friends already being at Hogwarts and how he’s worried he won’t make any friends his own age, and whether he’ll get homesick during the holidays…

And the whole thing’s a bit embarrassing really, but he keeps talking until he sees the adult’s eyes glaze over in distraction and then abruptly lets his words peter out like he’s lost his breath, gasping shallowly for effect. Draco might be a terrible liar, but he always knew his ‘dramatics’ would come in handy someday, because no one is going to be asking him any more weird, probing questions about Knockturn Alley except maybe Harry, who hasn’t stopped staring at him through cracked, dirty glass this entire time.

“That’s nice dear.” The Weasley mother says almost tentatively after a moment, smiling warmly and nudging the only other Weasley female present forward encouragingly. “Ginny here will be starting at Hogwarts this year too. I’m sure the boys will make sure to look after the two of you.”

The twins snicker rather tellingly and Draco makes a mental note not to get caught alone with them. Eldest Weasley Son straightens up and nods stoically like he’s just been given an order by the Minister of Magic himself (he’s probably going to try to avoid this one as well). Weasley Son the Younger, with a smudged nose wrinkled slightly in distaste at the missive, eyes Draco dubiously and does not appear to be at all pleased with Harry’s hand on Draco’s arm, and _this_ one Draco is relatively sure he can handle.

He’s had play dates with Blaise Zabini, after all.

“Harry!” For a boy with broken glasses, a sooty face, and old baggy clothes Harry is apparently in high demand, as a girl with hair so frizzy it actually makes Draco want to cry to look at it waves at them all from the steps of Gringotts before dragging two dull looking adults that are undoubtedly her parents over to meet them. Also, the Weasley child his own age -- Ginny, was it? -- is staring at Harry in a strangely ravenous manner for an eleven-year-old.

Maybe the Weasleys couldn’t keep her properly fed? Draco pats absently about his pockets until he manages to discover an unopened packet of biscuits and all but shoves it into the poor girl’s hand.

They were the digestives, anyway.

She looks startled, and finally drags her eyes away to land on Draco instead (which is mildly terrifying, Mother did always warn him that altruism could lead to cannibalism, but he’d always thought she was speaking more metaphorically) but then the girl that Draco wants desperately to give hair care tips to does a magnificent bit of magic to fix Harry’s glasses and Draco has far more pressing things to consider now.

Like whether it would be okay to break Harry’s glasses again and ask her to repeat the spell because he’d been distracted worrying for his life the first time.

“Honestly Harry.” The girl scolds him, pulling out a handkerchief from her pocket and scrubbing roughly at a soot smudge on his cheek. “You always find a way to get into trouble in the strangest places, don’t you? What _happened_ to you?”

“I’m fine, Hermione.” Harry mumbles around her scrubbing. “Draco here helped me find my way out to Diagon Alley.”

“ _Draco_?” Jealous Weasley snickers even as Draco is slumping down next to Harry, trying to make himself as small as possible and cursing his parent’s decision to follow the family constellation tradition when Crabbe and Goyle got away with nice normal names like Vincent and Gregory. Hermione is already whirling on the Weasley with a dark look and brandishing her kerchief like a weapon, however. “Ronald Weasley, did you just laugh at that poor boy’s name after he went to the trouble of helping Harry?”

Ronald Weasley freezes wonderfully and utters a weak, low, “Uh, no?”

“You’re very good at magic.” Draco beams at Hermione, _finally_ squirming out of Harry’s grip in the distraction of his own quiet scolding of the Weasel (this whole being younger than everyone else helping garner him sympathy is an intriguing concept, and he’s going to have to look further into it for sure). “Do you know any to deal with the soot? Could I see your wand?”

Hermione appears to be a touch flustered by his attention. “Oh, it’s nothing that impressive, honestly. Just a basic charm… are you starting Hogwarts this year, Draco?”

“Nobody is going to Hogwarts this year if we don’t get this shopping done today.” Mother Weasley intercedes, slightly frazzled, and starts ushering them all up the steps toward Gringotts which, ah. Hadn’t exactly been in Draco’s plans when he’d originally pulled Harry out of Borgin and Burkes and, oh, Father was sure to notice that he was missing by now.

Harry leans forward and whispers, “Will you get into trouble with your dad for leaving?”

“Oh, almost certainly.” Draco sighs regretfully, and then pushes on ahead of the group to go argue with a goblin about letting him into the family vault without his father present. Something he’d be able to do much better without being leered at by poor people with unfortunate hair (he doesn’t actually know the financial situation Harry or Hermione are in, but in comparison to his own family just about _everyone_ was poor honestly, a strange benefit of having so much family in prison).

And anyway, it would only hurt his case with Father more if someone inside happened to mention seeing Draco in such questionable company to the man when he makes his own stop here later.

Adults really were the worst sort of gossips.

“You! There! _Yes_ , you.” Draco waves a goblin over imperiously, only to discover that the creature is actually a centimeter or two taller than him, which is simply unacceptable. “Find me someone shorter that can take me to my family vault, would you?”

“Name?” The goblin mutters almost mutinously, looking like he’d very much rather leave Draco down one of the deeper tunnels to starve or possibly be eaten by a dragon.

Draco draws himself up as high as he can possibly manage without actually resorting to standing on his toes. “Malfoy.”

Ten seconds later the goblin has summoned over a far more appropriately short compatriot and Draco is being led back to the vaults with something that could almost be labeled as ‘respect’ and, honestly, Draco never really tires of being able to wield his surname like a weapon.

He’s going to need all the weapons he can get if even the _goblins_ are taller than him.

* * *

 

Back out on the steps of Gringotts, Draco entertains the idea of taking the chance to slip off on his own to do his shopping, but before he can make a decision one way or another Harry is knocking at his shoulder, Weasel is looking surly beside him, and Hermione bustles them all down the steps saying, “we can show you around to all the best shops for school supplies, Draco, _oh_ , and I can give you a list of good books for additional reading, do you have a favorite subject yet?”

Draco is sort of quietly impressed by how many words Hermione can get out with one breath and nearly informs her that he is _quite_ familiar with the layout of Diagon Alley, before deciding that he’d rather like to hear about her reading list after all and tells her instead, “... potions.”

And then promptly worries that he’s somehow said something wrong when all three pull peculiar faces at his answer. Hermione doesn’t give him enough time to truly start entertaining the idea of hyperventilating before she’s smiling again (noticeably strained, even by Draco’s admittedly self-absorbed standards) and offering up a weak, “I know a few reference materials that might help. And I can recommend a few extra ingredients to buy along with the standard first year set.”

Draco contemplates telling her that he can get hold of just about any reference material easily enough by simply writing to his godfather, but decides that he’d rather not see what their reaction to that would be if the mere mention of potions had them so stricken (poor dears must be abysmal on the subject, maybe he could give them a few pointers when they weren’t feeling so raw?) and so he just nods instead.

“ _Oh_ , but you’ll need a wand first, of course.” Hermione declares abruptly, slipping an arm through his and pulling him off in one direction down Diagon Alley without even pausing to see if the other two are following. “And robes, scales, a cauldron…”

Harry gives Draco a very specific wide-eyed look when he manages a glance over his shoulder at the other boy that very much suggests he simply go along with the mad girl. And for once in his life?

Draco’s choosing the path of least resistance.

* * *

 

Flourish and Blotts is _packed_ , and Draco knew he should have insisted they simply order the Lockhart books and avoid this whole mess. Instead now he’s going to be forced to mingle with the common rabble, and all the while dragging along a suitcase bigger than him (which Hermione had, at least, thoughtfully taught him a lightning charm for). Draco quietly resolves to bruise as many ankles and shins as it takes to make these people _get out of his way_.

(Maybe Mother had had a point about private tutors, if the Hogwarts hallways are in any way this crowded he was going to start hexing some people. Just as soon as he learned a hex, anyway.)

“We can actually meet him!” Hermione says shrilly near Draco’s ear without warning, startling him into dropping his trunk on Ron’s foot, so at least something good came out of what was no doubt irreparable damage to his hearing. And all for… Draco’s gaze follows hers up to a banner over the entrance of the store proudly announcing a Lockhart signing, and he _knew_ they should have just ordered his books.

“I can’t stay here.” Draco says almost desperately, turning to look at Harry. “None of us are safe.”

Harry gives him a worried, confused look for his trouble, though at least momentarily he’s stopped trying to push Draco in after Hermione, who’s already been lost to the tide of simpering middle aged mothers (it’s too late for her, all they can do now is try to save themselves).

“He might _wink_ at us, Harry.”

And, well, Draco really doesn’t see what Harry’s got to laugh about right now, and tells him as much.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of overdramatic?” Harry asks with an almost fond smile and a regrettable renewal in shoving him deeper into the shop.

“Never.” Draco says with a delicate sniff. “At least manhandle me in the direction of the reference texts, if I wind up in line with the rest of the desperate horde I’m liable to bite your hand, soot and all. And then I’ll probably cry because even discounting highly questionable fireplaces, I haven’t the slightest idea where your hands have been and will be liable to catch something.”

Harry laughs again like Draco isn’t being completely serious and shifts the vector of their entry to match Draco’s demands. “Well we can’t have that now, can we?” He says.

“I’m not an attractive crier.” Draco confides lowly with Harry, and he can’t even really say _why_ , apart from temporary insanity. “I’ve tried, trust me, but there’s nothing flattering about blotchy skin. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am trying to make a good impression on you.”

“I think biting me is more liable to make a bad impression on me than crying.” Harry says with a slight frown, sparing Draco only a momentary glance before craning his head to try and catch sight of his friends (which, considering their hair, shouldn’t be nearly as challenging as it apparently is, Draco suspects at least one side of the equation is letting the other side down and he won’t be certain until he can observe them all simultaneously but he’s more than willing to lay the blame at Weasley’s feet for now).

Draco can’t even begin to imagine how that could possibly be true. “I really think you’re underestimating the danger of blotchy skin, but anyway you’ll have _deserved_ it if I bite you.” He reminds the other boy patiently. “For leading me into danger. You’re older you know, you’re supposed to set a good example.”

“I’m probably not the best person to look to with that.” Harry tells him wryly. “Try Hermione. Or maybe Percy. He’s a Prefect, you know.”

“Percy _Weasley_?” Draco asks, perhaps a bit shrilly, an unfortunate side effect of his fighting back hysterics. “ _I could catch something_!”

Harry’s expression is caught somewhere between concerned and amused, and he can’t seem to settle on a response before the opportunity is wrenched sharply from his grasp by a crisp, expansive voice calling out across the length of the shop, “It _can’t_ he Harry Potter?”

“What. Where?” Draco says immediately, turning his head to scan the shop for the boy.

Harry flinches next to him, and they only have time to exchange a brief look of shared horror before Gildory Lockhart is pouncing upon Harry through the crowd and manhandling him up to stand next to him at the table, looking pained. Draco, meanwhile, is pretty sure he’s hyperventilating.

Lockhart is busy saying something that is no doubt extravagantly unimportant in light of finding out who Harry is, so Draco ignores him in favor of banging his head rhythmically against the nearest bookshelf until Hermione helpfully rematerializes with a frankly staggering stack of books in one arm and reaches out to cushion his head with her other hand.

“Oh Draco.” She sighs in muted concern. “Are you upset that we haven’t found your parents yet? Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re somewhere nearby, there’s just a lot of people in the shop so it’s hard to find people. We could try an amplification spell and make an announcement for them?”

_That_ is enough to make Draco freeze, forehead resting gingerly against her cupped palm and head turned slightly to give her a properly horrified look. “Absolutely not!”

Literally the one thing that Draco can imagine making this situation worse at this point would be to add his father to the mix.

Like an actor that’s been waiting all this time on the wings for his cue, or at the very least, for the most appropriate moment to make a dramatic entrance, his father strides forward through a crowd that can’t help but part around him (Draco had his suspicions this is why Father carries around that cane, to whack at the ankles of any who – quite literally - cross him, because honestly that’s what Draco would do with a cane like that too). “Draco, where _have_ you been?”

For a moment, Draco seriously contemplates curling up into a ball on the ground to cry, but then Lucius’ penetrating gaze settles tellingly on where Draco is touching Hermione, and Draco is whipping himself away so quickly that he’s relatively certain he gets whiplash from the effort.

He closes his eyes and takes a moment to settle his nerves along with the lay of his clothes, and when he opens his eyes again he figures he’s as ready as he’ll ever be to deal with all of… this. Him.

“ _Father_.” He stresses, widening his eyes in honest distress and feigned relief, words sounding unavoidably stilted as they fall from his mouth (hopefully Hermione will just assume he’s having a mental breakdown, rather than lying very badly). “Thank goodness I’ve found you, I got lost on the Floo Network again!”

Lucius raises one eyebrow so very slowly that the actual progression is entirely imperceptible, but Draco does his very best not to fidget or look _too_ guilty and eventually he’s forced to say, “we didn’t take the Floo, Draco.”

No kidding, Draco thinks mutinously behind a pained, but all too well-practiced earnest expression. If they had he would have never wound up in Borgin and Burkes in the first place which was rather, Draco suspects, the entire point of them apparating in the first place.

“I’m certain we must have, Father.” Draco says aloud through a polite rictus smile. In his periphery, he can see that Harry (Potter!) has managed to escape from Lockhart’s shiny clutches and returned with a stack of books and the Weasel besides, but Draco can’t turn away from his father right now, isn’t even sure he’d want to see whatever expression they’re sharing anyway. If the potions mishap from earlier was any sort of indication, they’re absolutely miserable at guarding their feelings from their faces.

It was a good afternoon while it lasted, at least.

Carefully, purposefully, he adds, “if we hadn’t, how else would I have wound up in Knockturn Alley. Alone.”

Father narrows his eyes and Draco widens his own, and then Arthur Weasley barrels artlessly through the rising tension with a sharp, pointed, “ _Lucius Malfoy_ , I thought that was your son. Having a little trouble keeping track of him, are you?”

“Hardly.” Father says with a sneer, moving his hand to grasp Draco’s shoulder in a propriety manner. “Though if I was, I would certainly consider asking for your advice. I can’t even begin to imagine how you manage to remember where you’ve left them all.”

The whole Weasley clan has gathered around now, _of course_ , and more than anything in the world he wishes he could apparate away right now. He’d even take Lockhart winking at everyone over this deeply unnecessary showdown between two grown men who should know better, really.

He still can’t quite bring himself to meet Harry’s eyes, no matter how much the other boy is attempting to do just that; Hermione looks confused, and the Weasel has this inappropriately triumphant look on his face, so Draco resorts to shooting a pained look at the Weasley daughter, only to delightedly discover that she’s already directing a similar expression back at him. Perhaps he had won her over with his offering of food earlier. He’d previously thought that sort of thing only worked with Crabbe and Goyle but maybe free food was enough incentive to make people want to be his friend.

Clearly he’s going to need to test this theory further once he’s at Hogwarts.

“We have very different ideas of what disgraces the name of wizards, Malfoy.” Arthur Weasley says hotly in response to something Father says, and Draco thinks, yes, _obviously,_ if you let yourself be seen outside with that hat and robe together, but maybe that’s not the sort of thing they’re talking about, because then Father is saying something about sinking (Draco wishes he could sink through the _floor_ , how is he ever going to make friends at Hogwarts now?) and a moment later Draco’s throwing himself to the side with an undignified shriek as the ruddy man lunges for his father, books and a cauldron going flying in the chaos.

Draco winds up pressed up against a bookshelf next to Hermione, though he doesn’t actually notice at first, eyes screwed shut and chanting desperately to himself, “this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening.”

And then he feels Hermione’s hand on his shoulder in the same place Lucius had set his hand, yet so distinctly different from each other that her touch is distinguishable immediately. He opens his eyes to find her giving him a concerned, probing look. “Are you okay, Draco?” She asks, and there’s so much more than just those four simple words behind what she’s saying that he refuses to look too closely at.

“Hermione, what are you _doing_?” Weasel demands furiously. “Didn’t you hear anything his dad just said?”

“Of course I did, Ron.” Hermione says back just as viciously, and honestly, she has one up on Draco if that’s the case, Draco should probably start making a point of listening more carefully the next time his father decides to sabotage his entire social career by running his mouth to a poor person. “Draco isn’t his father, though.”

It would be the first time someone had thought as much really. Draco finds he doesn’t really mind the idea terribly.

Harry pushes between the two of them, and cold dread runs through Draco’s veins as he opens his mouth to add, “He snuck me past his dad in Knockturn Alley, Ron.” Which. Doesn’t exactly _sound_ like condemnation? Strange. “And he was just as desperate to get away as I was. I think his dad was talking about poisons with the shopkeeper?”

Draco can’t quite manage to stop his wince in time. Honestly, talk about parent’s embarrassing you in public, Lucius Malfoy had clearly made an effort to turn it into an art.

There was nothing classy about discussing poisons before the watershed (he doesn’t actually know what this _means_ , he heard it once during a family vacation in the country and took a fancy to it).

Still, he can hardly just stand here and let people that don’t understand _anything_ talk about his father like they do. “Why don’t you try worrying about your own father instead, Weasley.” He sneers back with a touch less surety than he would have preferred, stepping back away from the shelf and the trio when he spots that giant of a man wading into the mess to separate the two men.

Lucius dusts himself off and throws something at Ginny and clearly, it’s time to leave. Just enough time to deliver a parting shot without having any time to overthink or regret trying to be his father’s son. “Someone could have been seriously hurt by his little tantrum.” _I_ could have been hurt, Draco thinks. “You should be careful, tempers are nasty little things to learn from your parents and you seem well on your way. Though I suppose your family doesn’t have much else that you could inherit, does it?” He adds with a pointed sniff before turning to follow his father out of the store when he beckons.

“I hope you realize I expect the _best_ racing broom available after that embarrassing little display, Father.” Draco declares only a few steps out of the store (he never got his books, they’re going to have to order them after all because obviously they can’t go back in now after they’ve made a suitably dramatic exit).

His father’s steps barely slow and he doesn’t bother to look at Draco when he answers. “What makes you think you’re getting anything after the trouble you put me through disappearing like that? Honestly Draco, I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for you to stay put for ten minutes.”

“... the skulls were staring at me again.” Draco says, rather than getting into the mess of explaining Harry’s involvement in his abscondment. It doesn’t really feel like it’s his to share, anyway. “ _Brawl_ ing in _public_ though, Father. What would Mother think if she were to hear?”

Draco gets his broomstick in the end, obviously.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Father is absolutely insufferable in the weeks leading up to the start of the term, to the point where Draco casually brings up disowning the man to Mother at one of their standing tea appointments.
> 
> Oh, not forever, obviously. Just long enough to teach him a lesson, really.
> 
> Mostly, Father keeps himself to vaguely ominous missives to keep to his own kind at Hogwarts and muttering darkly about perhaps sending him to Durmstrang after all (Mother firmly puts her foot down at that, which is fortunate because otherwise Draco might have been forced to run away from home to avoid getting stuffed into that school’s unfortunate uniform).
> 
> It’s annoying, but ultimately harmless. Father got like this for a bit in June and Draco had used the excuse of school letting out to spend as much time as possible at Crabbe and Goyle’s house over that first week until he had finally settled down. Come to think of it, he’d gone a bit weird the July the year before as well. Something about the summer just didn’t agree with his father’s temperament, apparently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Draco is the most unreliable of narrators and any especially negative portrayals of other characters in this story should honestly be taken with a grain of salt.
> 
> They're kids though, they're all unreliable narrators in their own way. Except for maybe Luna. Luna sees and knows all.

Father is _absolutely insufferable_ in the weeks leading up to the start of the term, to the point where Draco casually brings up disowning the man to Mother at one of their standing tea appointments.

Oh, not forever, obviously. Just long enough to teach him a lesson, really.

“Go easy on him, Draco.” She tells him patiently, reaching across the table to gently nudge his elbows down from where they’re resting inelegantly against the edge. Draco makes a face, sheepish mulishness in his movements as he sets his hands in his lap instead. “The ministry has been pushing hard with all of these raids lately and he’s under a lot of stress.”

Under the _manor_ too, and typically in a terrible mood whenever he does eventually resurface.

Mostly, Father keeps himself to vaguely ominous missives to keep to his own kind at Hogwarts (which Draco simply doesn’t understand, Mother has told him all too often how there is no one in this world like him) and muttering darkly about perhaps sending him to Durmstrang after all (Mother firmly puts her foot down at _that_ , which is fortunate because otherwise Draco might have been forced to run away from home to avoid getting stuffed into that school’s unfortunate uniform).

It’s annoying, but ultimately harmless. Father got like this for a bit in June and Draco had used the excuse of school letting out to spend as much time as possible at Crabbe and Goyle’s house over that first week until he had finally settled down. Come to think of it, he’d gone a bit weird the July the year before as well. Something about the summer just didn’t agree with his father’s temperament, apparently.

The poor house elves are sent nearly into hysterics though, and Dobby appears to take the brunt of it. Draco tries to request him specifically for jobs, to spare him as much as he can, but half the time he goes looking for the elf he’s nowhere to be found and the other half he’s slamming his fingers in doors or singeing his ears with the oven.

(Draco tells him flat out not to do that again, the smell is terrible.)

“You should really take more effort in your self-care, Dobby.” Draco tells him with a small, pitying shake of his head. “You already have so very little to work with, after all.” Not that Draco has any real understanding of what house elves consider attractive, or has any _desire_ to, even.

He can’t comprehend any situation where near constant self-flagellation would rate, though. Violence in any form is just so very ugly.

Dobby quivers and bows and scrapes, and it’s such an ugly sad little display that Draco turns to leave without another word, sweeping downstairs to look for his mother to ask for a nice cup of Kava that he’s suddenly craving.

There are men with shiny badges in the front entryway speaking firmly with Narcissa when he finally finds her, and Arthur Weasley is with them looking just as much of a disaster as the last time he’d seen him, and far too pleased with himself for Draco’s concern.

“Ah, Draco!” Weasley says as he catches sight of Draco over his mother’s shoulder, and Draco freezes unhappily at the base of the stairs as several sets of eyes settle on him.

Including his mother, by far the most intimidating of them all. “Draco, go back upstairs dear.”

“Nonsense!” Arthur Weasley steps around Narcissa and reaches out as if to grasp Draco’s shoulder. Draco skitters back anxiously out of reach, and the man laughs as he awkwardly shoves the hand into his pocket instead. “I’m sure Draco knows all about where his dad keeps his nastiest little knick knacks, why don’t you show me, son?”

Draco sneers visibly at the man as he steps backward onto the first step, and then again to the second, where he’s nearly eye level with him now. “What I _know_ is that our house elves dress better than you.” He says, and then, retroactively cautious, tacks on a stilted, “sir,” at the end when his good sense returns abruptly to remind him that Arthur Weasley has a temper and Draco has been informed on far too many occasions of how much, precisely, he resembles his father.

 “ _Gentle_ men.” Mother says as sharp as an accusal (one man actually visibly flinches) and then more gently. “Go back upstairs and finish your reading, Draco, I’ll send a house elf to find you when it’s time for our tea.”

He doesn’t have any reading, obviously. A quick scan revealed the Lockhart books to be all but useless, and he’s spent the last two weeks mostly familiarizing himself with the second year reading material in preparation for helping Crabbe and Goyle with their coursework again. But he nods and, warily, turns his back on the gathering to start back up the stairs, heart thundering loudly in his ears and all but drowning out the voice of his mother directing the men deeper into the manor to begin their search.

“I’ve finally found something more frightening than the things in the basement, Dobby.” Draco says shakily into the sofa cushions once he’s tracked down the house elf again (after he’s finished yelling into it a little, anyway) voice scratchy and hoarse. Or, to be more accurate, something more frightening than the idea of those things remaining in their basement indefinitely.

Dobby pats him hesitantly on the top of his head with one long, spindly hand, and Draco’s too drained to even make a protest at the presumption of his action. “Young master doesn’t know what he’s speaking of.” The house elf tells him almost kindly, and presses him with chocolate biscuits until he’s nearly sick.

Sometimes Draco could almost pretend Dobby actually liked him.

 

* * *

 

The Hogwarts express is dark, red, and looming, and for a brief, terrifying moment Draco is tempted to turn right back around and run back out through the brick wall. He’s not ready for this, he’s not--

“-breathing, Draco darling remember your exercises.” Mother bid him gently, pressing a few slim fingers to the back of his neck in encouragement as he breathes steadily in and out. “There’s nothing to worry about Draco, you’re going to do wonderfully in all your classes and make plenty of new friends. You’re going to have so much fun at Hogwarts, I’m sure you’ll forget all about your poor mother missing you desperately back home.”

Impossible. He hasn’t even stepped foot onto the train and he’s already homesick for her.

“Time to go, Draco.” Father says tightly, and Mother’s hand retreats demurely back to her side and Draco tries to pretend he isn’t suddenly colder at the loss.

He swallows heavily, squares his shoulders and turns on his heel to face his parents with a steady expression. “Mother, Father.” Draco says carefully. “I’ll make you both proud.”

“Big things are coming to Hogwarts this year.” His father says with the same pointlessly vague voice of premonition that he’s been touting for weeks. It doesn’t exactly bode well for whatever he’s going to say next. “Try not to get left behind.”

Draco doesn’t let his expression fall until he’s safely stowed away on the train with his luggage and his parents have apparated away without another word.

Left behind. He’s been trying to escape that particular fate for years.

The train pulls abruptly out of the station with a shrill whistle, sending Draco stumbling forward out of his dark thoughts and into the trunk resting at his feet, and Draco only manages to swallow a yelp out of sheer terror of making a poorer showing of himself than he already has to the handful of students still loitering in the hallway.

“That looks like it hurt.” A voice says quietly just behind him.

Draco turns with some sort of insincere assurance on his tongue, only for the words, “oh no, where are the rest of you,” to come tumbling out of his mouth instead when his eyes land on Ginny Weasley, with a look on her face like she can’t quite figure out whether or not to smile.

She seems to make her decision a moment later, and a good bit of tension bleeds from her as she laughs lightly and shakes her head at him. “Don’t worry, I’m kind of trying to avoid all of them too.” She reassures him, easily proving herself to be the most reasonable Weasley with only a handful of words.

“Oh good, they’re kind of awful.” Draco says without really thinking, and then spends almost a full second wondering if he should have actually said that to her face before she’s laughing again and agreeing.

Definitely the sensible Weasley, Draco sort of regrets only giving her digestives the last time they met. He searches a bit fruitlessly in his pockets for a moment only to confirm what he already suspected: no chocolate biscuits to his name.

A tragedy, really.

“--and Mum scolded Dad for _ages_ about the fight in Flourish and Blotts.” Ginny says with no small measure of delight, and Draco hopes he didn’t miss anything too terribly important when he wasn’t listening (this is beginning to be a _problem_ ). In any case, hearing that Arthur Weasley had been scolded like a child sends a petty little thrill of triumph through him and he’s smiling back at her now because yes, good. “How long did your mom get on your dad about it?” She asks, eyes bright.

“I didn’t tell her.” Draco admits, adding, “I blackmailed Father for a racing broom instead to buy my silence.” Though it was highly unlikely that Mother hadn’t eventually heard the story from _some_ body, it had caused quite a scene after all. Sometimes his father horribly underestimates Narcissa’s spy network. And he called himself a politician.

“Ooh, good idea.” She says with a wistful little sigh, though whether it was for her never getting the chance to try on blackmail herself or the fact that her father never would have been able to afford to buy her a racing broom anyway was anyone’s guess. “Did you bring it?” A considering look is leveled at his trunk and Draco does his level best to radiate innocence.

“Of course not, it’s against the _rules_ for first years to bring brooms, and even if I _had_ decided to sneak it in anyway _obviously_ I would have to swear you to secrecy, and unbreakable vows are so troublesome.”

“Good thing you didn’t bring it, then.”

“A very good thing.”

“ _There_ you two are!” A pair of chillingly familiar voices cuts through their exchange and Draco can’t quite manage to keep himself from freezing up like he’s just been caught doing something far more scandalous than he actually has. Father would probably disagree, conversing pleasantly with a Weasley is almost certainly at the top of his list, but Draco can’t help but feel like _beggars can’t be choosers_ (and anyway, Ginny is only eleven and still quite impressionable, really, she can still be saved).

Father isn’t here right now, though. The Weasley twins, however, are. Draco pulls a face that Ginny mirrors before they’re beset upon by matching grins of portent.

George (or Fred, whatever, is Draco actually expected to tell them _apart_ , it’s hard enough keeping the Weasley names straight when they only look mostly alike instead of entirely) sidles up to sling a heavy arm over Draco’s shoulder. He flinches reflexively and tries to duck back out only for the older boy to tighten his grip with a smile that’s all teeth. “We promised Mom that we’d look after you two at school, how are we supposed to do that if we can’t even find you?”

“It’s almost like you’re hiding from us.” The other one adds from his other side, and Draco is having a distinctly difficult time getting his lungs to work, he would trade being back in Knockturn Alley over this moment right now. A hundred times over.

A thousand.

“I wonder why when you two are acting like a bunch of bullies.” Ginny says fiercely, stepping forward to shove one of the boys away from Draco, then the other one. “Leave him alone.”

The twins share a wide eyed, silent exchange before turning to her in sync. “But Ginny,” One says,

“How can we do that,” the other interjects,

“When he’s here,”

“And you’re here,”

“Together.” They say as one, and turn to give him a meaningful look.

“I was just leaving!” Draco practically shouts, taking a few quick steps back until his shins knock up against the side of his trunk. “To meet my friends.” He adds almost frantically. He doesn’t even care if his lie is at all believable right now, he just wants _away_. “Who are waiting for me.”

Another shared look. “But Draco, aren’t _we_ your friends?” Draco can’t even be sure if they’re speaking in tandem anymore, they’re both blurring together in a rather disorienting way that may have a bit to do with how hard it is for him to breathe right now. In any case, they clearly practice at saying ridiculous things with a straight face, which Draco could _nearly_ appreciate under different circumstances.

“ _No!_ ” He spins sharply on a heel, trunk quickly pulled to heel and practically sprints down the hallway, casting furtive looks over one shoulder to make sure the boys aren’t following him. Ginny appears to have them both well in hand for now, but Draco is hardly willing to tempt fate for long and quickly ducks into the first compartment that looks halfway empty, slamming the door shut again behind him.

The only person in the compartment lifts her head up from where she had been quietly perusing a magazine upside down to give him a questioning look.

“Sanctuary.” Draco gasps out as he collapses back against the compartment door and concentrates on getting his breathing back under control.

Something clears in the girl’s expression and she folds the magazine neatly in her lap, scooting to one side of the bench in a clear invitation. Which is, admittedly, considering the other entirely empty bench just across from her, a bit strange, but he appreciates the sentiment regardless. “Were you being chased by a Blibbering Humdinger, by chance?” She asks in an airy, hopeful voice.

Draco straightens and turns to stare warily at the closed door, pointedly maneuvering his trunk directly in front of it before retreating back to collapse on the bench next to the girl. “Something like that.” He mutters darkly, still casting the door a suspicious look. In any case he was probably more likely to remember a name like that than whatever the twin’s names actually were.

The girl sighs wistfully. “I’m jealous. I’ve always wanted to see one.” She says. “I guess they’re a bit shy.”

Shy was not something Draco would ever accuse a Weasley of. How could they be, with that hair? And anyway, what on _Earth_ was a blibbering humdinger?

“I’m Luna Lovegood.” The girl speaks again before Draco can think to ask what book the creature is listed in, and of course the proper manners that Mother had long ago trained into him dictates that he drop that particular line of inquiry for the requisite introductions.

“Ah, Draco Malfoy.” Draco says, and then waits.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Draco. Is this your first year at Hogwarts too?” Luna says sweetly.

 “...yes.” Draco answers slowly, hesitantly, and then takes another, longer look at the girl sitting beside him. She’s wearing an assortment of strange, handmade jewelry, looking at him with an entirely benign but surprisingly probing stare, and brightly colored magazine in her lap. And then Draco remembers where he’s heard her name before. “Your father writes the Quibbler, doesn’t he?”

Luna smiles at him in an approving manner. “And your father is on the school’s Board of Governors, isn’t he?” She asks, bringing up quite possibly the most harmless thing about his father, even if the fact that she actually _knows_ something so obscure about his father is a little unnerving. Her father was a journalist though, right? Perhaps that was the only explanation necessary.

(Draco’s never read the Quibbler, only knows that his parents have a rather poor opinion of it. Which of course means he’s dreadfully curious about it.)

“Among other things.” Draco agrees eventually with a slight inclination of his head. “Is the Blibbering Humdinger something from one of your father’s articles?” He asks after another brief, oddly comfortable pause. “Only, I don’t think I recall reading anything about them in any of the texts. Not even second year’s.”

“Oh yes.” Luna says, smiling a bit wider now. “Dad writes about all sorts of fascinating creatures that I dream of seeing one day.” She gives him a considering stare and then asks, “you’ve read the second year texts too?”

Sheepishly Draco says, “Not _all_ of them,” with a slight shrug. “Enough to help some friends with their Summer homework, mostly.”

Luna sets aside her magazine entirely and scoots a touch closer to him on the bench seat, eyes bright. Draco only leans back a little in response. “It must be nice to go to Hogwarts already knowing people there.” She says in the same sort of wistful tone that she had used to talk of a rare, elusive creature. Which, Draco supposes, is entirely fair. “I imagine it takes a lot of the worry from trying to make friends.”

“Not really.” Draco says before he can think better of being _quite_ so honest about his anxieties.

She hums thoughtfully and gives him another probing look before reaching out to grasp his hands in her own, and Draco honestly has no idea where people are getting the idea that it’s okay to just… touch him like this or how he should even feel about it. “I know, _we_ should be friends.” Luna tells him, looking entirely delighted with herself.

Draco is only just beginning to realize that Luna might not be entirely normal.

Thankfully, she must see some of Draco’s confusion in his eyes because she decides to explain herself. “That way, no matter what happens with sorting or classes or other students, we’ll know that we at least have each other to depend on. Then maybe this whole thing will feel just a little bit less scary.” She squeezes his hands between her own. “Together.”

Carefully, Draco extracts his hands from hers and doesn’t answer until his hands are safely back in his lap. Mostly to keep himself from agreeing immediately out of sheer desperation. “You don’t even know me.” Is what he eventually says.

“Of course I know you, you’re Draco Malfoy.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Draco says with a roll of his eyes. “Being purposefully obtuse doesn’t suit you.” She may be a bit flakey, but she’s clearly not an idiot.

Luna just beams at him like he’s paid her some compliment, rather than simply stating the obvious, and repeats herself a bit more firmly. “You’re Draco Malfoy, and you’ve spoken to me more than anyone else on the train has been willing to. _Combined_.”

Draco gives her a long, considering look and Luna meets his eyes head on without flinching or looking away. He’s pretty sure that’s supposed to be a sign of good upbringing (or of ‘challenging the status quo’ which, Draco still can’t get a firm read on his parents on which side of things they stand for _that_ ). He’s the first to break the stare when there’s a knock on the compartment door and a moment later it slides open to reveal a stout little witch pushing a trolley of snacks.

(Of course, the doors _slides_ open, Draco feels like an idiot for trying to barricade one with his trunk, but in his defense he had been under quite a lot of stress at the time).

“Anything from the trolley, dear?” She asks, and Draco darts a quick look between Luna and her, then back again at Luna’s open smiling face before coming to a decision.

He quickly fishes into his pocket and pulls out a small bag of spending money that Mother had pressed onto him before leaving the manor that morning. “We’ll take an assortment.” Draco tells her, thinking of the way Luna’s friendly expression hadn’t changed when she heard his last name, how easy it had been for her to hold his hand, to ask to be his friend (except it wasn’t easy, and not because it was _him_ but because making friends wasn’t easy, even if Luna seemed to think it should be). And maybe he also thinks of Ginny, laughing at his jokes and telling off her stupid, brutish brothers, and how nervous _she_ had been in Diagon Alley.

He’s been so worried about falling behind that he almost didn’t notice that he’s not the only one here trying to find their stride. That he doesn’t actually have to do this alone.

“And don’t skimp on the chocolate.”

 

* * *

 

By the time there’s another knock on their compartment door, Draco and Luna have worked through a good amount of the sweets, Draco’s dragged out a pile of his year two texts from his trunk for Luna to leaf through, and Luna’s introduced Draco to the bright and glossy pages of the Quibbler, which Draco spends an average of five minutes a page staring at in varying stages of mute and shrill fascinated horror.

“It’s the Minister’s Heliopaths!” Draco flings the magazine back at Luna with a shout and then attempts to climb into his open trunk to hide.

“I don’t think Heliopaths would bother knocking.” Luna says sensibly, smoothing the slightly crumpled pages of her magazine down before setting it aside. “But I’ll ask. Hello, are you by any chance Heliopaths sent by the Minister of Magic to silence us for good?”

There’s a pause from the other side of the door. “Uh. No?” Says a voice that Draco knows all too well.

“Crabbe?” Draco says, quickly climbing back out of his trunk and shaking free a stray, trailing scarf wrapped around one ankle.

“Malfoy!” Two voices crow together from the hall, discordant and offbeat and not at all as unnerving as when those Blibbering Humdingers do that sort of thing. The door slides open a moment later to reveal Crabbe and Goyle staring across at him with now small measure of relief on their faces.

A feeling Draco returns whole heartedly.

After all, this way if the Heliopaths come for him they’ll have to get through Crabbe and Goyle first.

Draco takes a step forward towards them only to be arrested by the mess of his belongings scattered on the floor in front of his open trunk. Which is for the best, really, because Draco doesn’t have the slightest idea what he planned to do once he got over to them. He throws himself back into his seat instead, just barely missing sitting on a pumpkin pastie, which he holds out in offering instead with a purposefully light, “Pastie?”

Goyle’s eyes widen in delight and he takes a rather impressive step over the majority of disaster on the floor of the compartment to claim the pastie as his own and settle across from them in a seat.

Crabbe, meanwhile, crouches down on the floor beside Draco’s trunk and starts carefully placing things back in. “We’ve been looking for you _everywhere_ , Malfoy.” He says while folding Draco’s cloak.

“Everywhere.” Goyle confirms with a grimace. “We made the snack lady angry when we tried to see if you had decided to hide away in her trolley because of something your father said, and she wouldn’t sell to us after.”

“Well, have as many as you like.” Draco says with an open gesture at the candy scattered around the compartment. “Just be sure to leave a few chocolate frogs, I have a… business matter to attend to after we depart from the train. Crabbe, I bought a bag of Bertie Botts, I know how you like to gamble with those things.”

Crabbe sighs heavily in Goyle’s direction and makes no move to claim any of the candy as his own until he’s tucked the last stray dragonhide glove away in Draco’s trunk, sliding in next to Goyle on the bench and elbowing him lightly. “I told him he should make sure to eat more before he left this morning, this happened last year when we thought you might have tried to smuggle your way on the train inside her trolley, and he complained the _whole way_ about being hungry.”

“I tried to but Mother wouldn’t let me.” Draco admits, while Goyle protests, (“I was too excited about getting to go to school with Malfoy this year to eat anything at breakfast!”) and Draco’s forced to turn and look at him in surprise. “What, really?”

Goyle nods eagerly around a squirming chocolate frog and Luna interjects excitedly with a shout. “You two must be those second year friends of Draco’s! And they’ve been looking for you this whole time, isn’t that _wonderful_ , Draco?”

“Er, yeah.” Crabbe says, eyeing Luna dubiously and a bit warily, as if he’d only just noticed her presence here. “Malfoy’s our best friend, of course we looked for him. Who’re you?”

“Luna Lovegood, it’s a delight to meet Draco’s other friends.”

“Other?”

Luna smiles in a way that Draco is just beginning to get used to understanding means that she knows something they don’t. And he finds that he doesn’t even mind, really. “Oh yes,” She says. “I still haven’t decided whether Draco is going to be my _best_ friend yet, the year’s only just started after all, but I’m certain at least that he’s going to be a very good one.”

Draco finds that he honestly has no response to that.

Crabbe and Goyle don’t appear to have the same reservations as him. With a shrug and a low muttered, “okay”, Crabbe fishes out a few Bertie Botts beans and squints consideringly at them for a moment before tentatively popping one in his mouth and making a pleased hum at whatever flavor greets him.

Goyle, meanwhile, is nodding his head in seeming agreement and asks, “what’re you doing hanging out in here, anyway? Didn’t we say we’d try and find each other on the train?”

Draco doesn’t know how to explain that he was hiding from the Weasley twins without getting Crabbe and Goyle into trouble before the term has even begun when they inevitably decided to hunt them down, and anyway Crabbe and Goyle hardly knew any useful hexes or protection charms and those Blibbering Humdingers had a few years on them in that regard (he couldn’t count on a Weasley to fight fair, in any case, they seemed like they’d be the desperate sort). So instead he just says, “I was forced to make a strategic retreat.” And then quickly adds, to avoid giving them the chance to ask what he meant by that, “Besides, I wasn’t sure if you’d really want to spend time with a first year on the train.”

Or at least, he’d thought that was what he said. Crabbe and Goyle, on the other hand are staring at him like he just said something entirely incomprehensible.

Beside him, Luna is shaking her head slowly and smiling softly to herself in amusement, though the magazine is open again in her lap so that could be unrelated.

“ _Malfoy_.” Crabbe says, almost chiding. “What are you talking about, who _else_ would we want to spend time with?”

Draco is already regretting this conversation. “Cool, older kids in Slytherin, I don’t know.” He says eventually with a purposefully diffident shrug and light, unconcerned tone. “I haven’t even been sorted yet, what if we wind up in a different house?”

“There’s nobody cooler than you!” Goyle interjects fiercely, scattering a few loose and crumpled candy wrappers to the ground when he decides to stand to help make his point.

“And what does it matter what house you wind up in anyway?” Crabbe adds with a strained, furrowed look. “We’d still be your friend no matter _what_ house you were in.”

“Even if I get sorted into Hufflepuff?”

An explosive laugh bursts out of Goyle suddenly and seems to propel him backward into his seat, while Crabbe just settles for rolling his eyes a bit. “Malfoy we’re being serious here, this is not the time for jokes.”

“Sorry.” Draco says abashedly, and ducks his head to hide the relieved smile growing steadily on his face.

He isn’t though, not really. It had either been that or cry gratefully all over the two of them and if Draco was ever _that_ far gone he might be destined for Hufflepuff after all.

Perish the thought.

 

* * *

 

Hogwarts is tall and dark and fearsome against a twilight sky, and Draco has the sense of mind to appreciate precisely none of it because their arrival had managed to take all of them by surprise, forcing them to all but fling their robes on over their clothes in a flurry of fabric and elbows (Goyle gets a bloody nose and Draco gets his first chance to practice that helpful fabric cleaning spell from the second year charms text while Luna apologizes effusively amidst bubbling, slightly hysteric laughter).

This was not the poised and measured first impression that Draco was hoping to make on the school.

“How’s my hair?” Draco asks Crabbe, voice tinged with the faintest shade of hysteria as he attempts to smooth down a few stray strands without the aid of a mirror, only for his efforts to be entirely spoiled by the balmy breeze that greets them as soon as they step off the train.

Crabbe just gives him a quietly concerned look and pats him consolingly on the shoulder, which has Draco honestly contemplating self-decapitation in order to distance himself from what is clearly a lost cause.

Thankfully Hermion’s bushy tangled nightmare chooses this moment to work its way into his eyeline and Draco is instantly reminded that _it could always be worse_. And then he realizes that the presence of Hermione’s hair almost certainly means Hermione herself is also present, and has just enough time to freeze up and send Crabbe stumbling into his back, before Hermione is on him like a Blubbering Humdinger scenting blood.

“Draco, thank god.” Hermione says, clutching at Draco’s arm, because clearly she’s a huge fan of this whole _touching_ thing and suffers from selective amnesia (it’s the only explanation Draco can come up with for why she’s apparently happy to see him right now). “Have you seen Harry?”

“Why on _Earth_ would I have?” Draco asks with no small measure of disbelief, Crabbe and Goyle quiet, curious statues at his shoulder and eyeing her hand on his arm like they can’t quite figure out whether they should be doing something about it right now.

He shrugs them off with a subtle head shake and shooing gesture; he simply doesn’t have the energy to try and explain this whole… this. To them right now. Later, he promises himself as they leave without a word, eyes speaking plenty regardless. He’ll explain later. He owes them at least that much.

Hermione, meanwhile, has failed entirely to notice the silence conversation and is frowning thoughtfully at Draco before explaining, “I thought he might have gone looking for you on the train, he mentioned wanting to speak to you again.”

Because that doesn’t sound at all ominous.

“So many people looking for you, Draco.” Luna hums as she steps up into the vacuum left by Crabbe and Goyle, startling Hermione into releasing Draco’s arm at her sudden appearance. “It must be nice to be so popular already.”

One would have thought, but at this point Draco is beginning to wonder. Exceedingly stressful might be a better word. In the distance, a distinct halo of red catches his eye and it only takes a moment to confirm that it belongs to Ginny rather than one of her brothers. Draco seizes on the opportunity to escape from a conversation he honestly has no idea how to contribute to. “Something like that, sure. Luna, this is Hermione. Hermione, Luna.” Draco says, gesturing between them carelessly. “Talk amongst yourselves for a bit, I have some business to take care of.”

(As he cuts his way through the crowd, Draco hears Hermione ask Luna stiltedly, “So how long have you know Draco, then?” and Luna’s amused response: “How long was the train ride?” They’ll be fine.)

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Ginny greets him breathlessly when he elbows another boy out of his way to sidle up next to her, staring out across the dark expanse of the lake before them.

“… a touch lopsided.” Draco says after a moment, tilting his head to one side in consideration. Ginny manages to cover most of her laughter with her hands, but Draco still considers it a win, really. “Hold out your hand.”

“Why?” Ginny asks, still behind the shield of her hands.

“Because I earned that laugh and I want to hear it.” He tells her seriously. “And because I have something I need to give you.”

“If you spit in my hand I’m going to drown you in the lake,” Ginny tells him quite firmly, with a look that says she’s really not joking, as she holds out her hand.

Draco does his very best impression of his mother and gives her a quelling look as he carefully places three wrapped chocolate frogs in her open palm. “Please, I am nothing like your brothers.”

Ginny’s fingers close instantly on the treat, as if she’s afraid that he’ll take them back away if she doesn’t, but she’s giving him a quiet, thoughtful look as she pockets them. “I think I’m starting to understand that.” She says with a wry smile.

“Yes, well.” Draco says, suddenly uncomfortable at all of this emotional honesty, and taking a step back, and then another. “I should probably get back…”

“You don’t have to.” Ginny offers, still smiling. “We could share a boat across if you like.”

Draco’s eyes go wide and he stumbles on his next step. “Oh, I couldn’t.” He says hurriedly. It would feel far too much like picking sides. A side his father wouldn’t approve of in the least. Also: “Our hair would clash _terribly_ , you know. Hardly the best sort of first impression to be making, is it?”

“Oh of course, how silly of me.” Ginny says with a giggle, waving him off and aiming herself at a cluster of three girls nearby with a casual, “thanks for the candy, Draco!” thrown over her shoulder in a clear dismissal.

Well. No one can say the girl didn’t learn quickly.

Hermione is gone when he gets back to Luna, and Luna’s pressing a thick, heavy text to his chest that Draco is relatively certain she didn’t have when they left the train. “She had to get to the carriages to look for her friends.” Luna explains even as she begins to nudge him back over toward the lake where that giant man from Diagon Alley is directing first years onto boats. “She wanted me to give you that, though, and to tell you that she’d speak to you again after the sorting.”

A quick perusal reveals that the book is some sort of potions reference text, something to do with the composition of basic ingredients and, alright, he’s intrigued. Clearly he’s going to have to find out what sort of sweets she likes best.

_Owing_ anyone anything honestly sounds like a fate worse than death.

And yet, still not quite as bad as being forced into close proximity for the enforced length of one boat ride with a nattering sycophant named Colin Creevey who won’t stop hugging his camera and talking about how _brilliant_ it is to be going to the same school as The Harry Potter, _can you imagine_? Draco contemplates inciting the giant squid in the lake to have its hand (tentacle?) at a spot of assisted drowning (his or Creevey’s, he’s honestly not picky at this point) and praying that he was never quite this bad the year before.

(He’s pretty sure he owes Mother a long overdue apology regardless).

“I’m beginning to think I made an excellent investment in being your friend, Draco.” Luna says, apropos of nothing as the first few boats begin to touch on the shore, dragging her gaze away from where they’ve been focused unerringly on Hogwarts until now, to look instead at him. “You already know so many people at the school,” (Hagrid had greeted him tentatively when they’d approached to claim a boat, and Luna had been oddly delighted at the painfully awkward exchange) “one can hardly imagine what you would even need me for, honestly.”

Draco regards her seriously for a moment before humming and answering idly, “well we do color coordinate quite well, I can’t overstate the importance of that.”

Luna doesn’t laugh like Ginny, but her smile is equally rewarding to see, and he’s in much better spirits as they alight from the boat and he gets the chance to trip Creevey into the lake with a satisfying splash.

“Oh dear, you should be more careful.” Draco says with feigned concern as he steps lightly over the boy and doesn’t look back, following the main body of first years in their controlled flow up the path and into the entry hall.

“That wasn’t very nice of you, Draco.” Luna says, matching pace with him regardless.

“I _never_ claimed to be _nice_.” Draco says, sounding almost horrified at the notion. “Besides, I didn’t see you stop to help him back up either.”

“He’s not my friend.” Is all Luna says as a professor steps forward to greet them all and direct them into the great hall in an orderly fashion, though Draco hears the unspoken ‘you are’ well enough anyway. “Oh, _Draco_ ,” she breathes after a moment, eyes drifting up like a magnet drawn. “Look at the ceiling.”

“It’s enchanted to mirror the sky outside.” Draco says without actually bothering to look up, too busy staring up at the head of the room in abject horror. “Oh _no_ , what is _he_ doing there?”

“Who?” Luna says curiously, diverting her gaze to match Draco’s in an instant.

“ _Lockhart._ ” Draco says with a shudder.

“I imagine it has something to do with him being the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.” Luna remarks in a deceptively light tone considering the subject matter. “It was in all the major publications, you know.”

“I don’t read newspapers, I’m _eleven_!” Draco says shrilly, prompting the professor that led them in to look up from an unfurled scroll in her hands and give him a sharp look. He ducks his head and waits for her to get back to reading out names and continues quietly, “why couldn’t we keep last year’s professor, this seems deeply unnecessary.”

“Last year’s professor tried to kill a first year student, Draco.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” Draco mutters mutinously. “Maybe they deserved it, children _are_ horrid little monsters as a rule.”

“It was Harry Potter.”

Draco can’t stop the wince in time, and his answering, “Ugh, _fine,_ ” is incredibly grudging. “But if that man tries to touch me, I’ll scream, I mean it. I have no desire to find out if tacky is actually contagious.”

 “I’m sure you have a natural immunity.” Luna tells him consolingly.

“A _hem_ , Lovegood. Luna.” The professor announces pointedly, and giving the two of them a deeply disapproving look as Luna breaks away from him with a smile and airy wave and makes her way up to the stool displaying a ratty old hat that Draco is going to have to put on soon in front of _everyone_ , and, oh god, he can’t do this, he’s—

“RAVENCLAW!” The hat announces, and Draco watches Luna make her way over to a table adorned in pale blue and bronze, does one of Mother’s breathing exercises while he tries not to panic.

His own name comes far too soon for his peace of mind, and it takes a sharp elbow in his ribs courtesy of Ginny Weasley (already she’s proving herself to be an excellent, if a bit brusque, investment) to get him moving up to the stool, where he puts on his very best Malfoy Mask of Superiority. Luna’s tiny, reassuring smile from the Ravenclaw table is the last thing he sees before everything goes dark beneath the brim of the hat.

‘My, my, a _Malfoy_ , it has been awhile, hasn’t it?’ The hat muses in ancient, dusty sort of voice in Draco’s head, and Draco willfully resists the sudden urge to brush away imagined cobwebs from his head by squeezing his hands in his lap fitfully.

‘Why are you asking _me_ , you were there, weren’t you?’ Draco thinks somewhat irritably, before realizing that he should probably try being more polite to the thing responsible for deciding his entire academic future.

The hat chuckles dryly, but then, it has exactly the sort of voice that has to do everything dryly. ‘I don’t know if I would go _that_ far, young Malfoy. After all, no matter where I decide to place you, what you _do_ there to define yourself is entirely dependent upon you. And it isn’t as if I won’t take some level of input from you about where you’d like to end up.’

Draco’s heart soars up to get lodged in his throat. ‘Really?’

A hum rings oddly about Draco’s head and if it weren’t for the fact that he’s currently wearing the thing on his head, Draco could almost swear the hat was _staring_ at him now.

Maybe that was just the thousands of eyes of the Great Hall currently resting on him, though.

 ‘Curious that would be what caught your attention, with your lineage you’re practically guaranteed a seat at the Slytherin table.’ The hat muses idly, and Draco really wishes he had been paying more attention when other students were being sorted to know if he’s making some kind of scene by taking so long. ‘Interesting, you could actually do quite well in some of the other houses, you’ve certainly been studious enough for Ravenclaw…’

Draco can’t be entirely sure, but he thinks his heart skips a beat at the suggestion.

‘Oh?’ The damned thing sounds amused now. Draco wraps his hands a little tighter around the book in his lap and grits his teeth to keep from snapping and possibly ruining everything. ‘I’ll admit, the thought of sorting a Malfoy somewhere different for once isn’t a wholly undesirable one. I can’t even remember the last time—’

‘Black.’

‘What’s that?’ The hat asks, still sounding dreadfully amused.

‘Mother is a Black.’ Draco thinks back firmly at the miserable ragged thing, because even if it thinks she’s unimportant, Draco never will.

‘Ah yes, the Blacks, interesting family there, and if we’re mentioning them there’s always Sir—’

“Dear god, no.” Draco accidentally says out loud to the reaction of low, scattered whispers spreading out through the Great Hall. He presses his lips together and thinks viciously upward, ‘ _not_ Gryffindor, what is wrong with you, are you trying to get me disowned?’ After all, Sirius Black wasn’t exactly the sort of relative one tried to model themselves after.

‘You’ve certainly inherited your family’s tendency towards the dramatic.’

‘And you seem to be determined to keep me up here until I’m nearly as old as you.’

There’s a pause, just long enough for Draco to exhale, and the hat is serious when it responds. ‘No more small talk then, very well. You have a choice, young Malfoy. You can follow tradition and take your place at the Slytherin table, or…’

‘Or?’

‘Or you have a friend waiting for you at Ravenclaw that is no doubt saving you a seat right now.’

‘I…’ Hermione’s book is heavy in his lap, nearly as heavy as the decision the hat has just placed on his shoulders. ‘Would it really be okay? To go to Ravenclaw?’

‘Interesting, certainly. Your mother once considered it, you know. And your friend Ms. Lovegood made sure to put in a good word for you as well, when she was up here. She didn’t have the slightest doubt that you had what it took to get sorted into Ravenclaw.’

Draco is really getting exhausted by this whole, ‘people believing in him’ thing. It’s honestly very stressful. And yet, he can’t stop from smiling when he thinks: ‘well then, I can’t let her down, now can I?’

Somehow, he gets the feeling the hat approves. ‘Very well then, young Malfoy, for you it’s going to have to be…’ “RAVENCLAW!”

He doesn’t look around at anyone as the sorting hat is removed from his head and he manages to lock eyes with Luna across the room almost instantly. She’s clapping harder than anyone around her (not a terribly difficult feat, most of the students seated next to her are a touch reserved in their applause) and it nearly manages to drown out the low angry hum rising steadily from the Slytherin table. Draco stares down his nose pointedly at the boy sitting to Luna’s right until he flushes, stammers, and slides over enough to give him plenty of room to slot himself in at the table and still have space for his book besides.

“You,” He tells her with careful, deliberate measure, “are a horrid gossip, and should be ashamed of yourself. Conspiring with accessories.”

Luna simply smiles and slides him her copy of the Quibbler across the table, as well as a slightly crumpled chocolate frog.

Perhaps he'll forgive her, just this once.

 

* * *

 

Draco and Luna spend the rest of the sorting with their heads bent low over Hermione’s surprise gift and muttering amongst themselves, pointedly ignoring the prefect three seats down from them hissing at them to pay attention. _Obviously_ he’s just jealous that he hadn’t thought to bring his own book to get through this dreadfully boring affair. A few of the more enterprising within Draco and Luna’s immediate vicinity eventually fish out their own texts as well.

He does make a point of looking up from the book when he hears the name Weasley and watches silently as Ginny sits herself down on the stool and disappears beneath the hat. The resulting Gryffindor ruling is hardly surprising considering a simple law of averages, but just a touch disappointing nonetheless. Still, he makes a point of applauding as she makes her way down to the table, shrugging diffidently when she meets his eyes with a clearly conflicted look.

Hermione will take care of her, and they’re sure to share one or two classes anyway.

Perhaps it will even be a bit like having a spy in another house.

“You’ll help me write up a proposition to convince Ginny to be my double agent among The Brave and Stupid, won’t you?” He murmurs to Luna as the professor with the scroll rolls it up with a sense of finality and removes the hat and then herself a moment later from the great hall.

At the head table, Dumbledore stands to address them. “Sounds interesting.” Luna says happily as she carefully scoops his book up from the table just as Dumbledore announces:

“Tuck in!” and a vast assortment of food suddenly appears on the table in its place to the distressed cry of several poor saps who hadn’t been quite so quick off the draw and wound up with foodstuffs on their reading.

It was a good thing Luna liked him, else he would likely be terrified of her.

“I heard something else interesting while you were having your nice chat with the sorting hat.” Luna adds after the jostling of elbows as everyone begins to load their plates settles down.

(”I was not _chatting_ with that hideous thing!” Draco protests feebly.)

Draco sniffs cautiously at a pot of tea in front of him only to push it aside in despair. Kava. His mother’s reach truly was remarkable. “Apparently, your friend Hermione couldn’t find her friends on the train because they came here in a flying car instead.” Luna declares placidly.

“What.”

“A Ford Cortina, I believe.” She adds between bites of food. “You have very interesting friends, don’t you?”

“They’re not even my friends!” Draco protests more firmly compared to his last sad attempt. At least, they shouldn’t be. Not after Flourish and Blotts.

Luna just takes a sip of pumpkin juice and hums. “You should probably let them know that then, don’t you think?” She says, and nods over to the Gryffindor table where Hermione is waving wildly in his direction.

Draco scowls down at his plate. “You try telling her anything.” He mutters in exasperation, stabbing at a piece of chicken on his plate with his fork a touch forcefully. “… Father wouldn’t approve.” He adds gloomily after a moment, because no matter how unnecessarily vague Lucius had been after their shopping trip, he hadn’t been at all subtle about _that_.

Luna leans in to press her shoulder against his. “Would he approve of you being in Ravenclaw?” She asks, worry coloring her voice.

“… not really, no.”

“And did you have a plan to deal with that in place?”

“Blackmail and Mother, mostly.” Draco says, dragging his fork tines through the gravy on his plate. “But he would have to do something _terribly_ embarrassing between now and the end of the school year.”

Luna pulls his plate away and replaces it with one with something chocolate and crumbly on it instead, squeezing his shoulder encouragingly. “I’ll see what I can do.” She says in a deceptively light tone. Draco chooses not to question her, for the sake of his own sanity.

At least the pudding is good.

 

* * *

 

Draco doesn’t even get a warning in the form of his name being shouted suddenly in his ear this time before Hermione is swooping down on him after Dumbledore’s start of term speech (Draco doesn’t hear most of it, but what he does hear makes him think that in this particular case it’s a saving grace more than anything) grabbing him by the arm and dragging him away from the table.

“What. What. What.” Draco says hopelessly.

Luna just waves from her place at the table and promises, “I’ll help you find the Ravenclaw dorm later, Draco.” And also, “Ask Harry if my father can get an interview with his Ford Cortina!”

He shoots a desperate, helpless look over his shoulder at Crabbe and Goyle as they pass the Slytherin table, but they’re already out the door before the boys even have a chance to stand up. “If you are taking me away to murder me and feed my body to the giant squid without any witnesses, I would at least ask that you send a kind note to my mother lying to her about how I went to my death bravely and with great poise.” Draco requests, he thinks, quite reasonably, so the skeptical look she sends him over her shoulder is entirely uncalled for, really.

“You have a _slight_ persecution complex, don’t you?” She asks him gently after a moment, as they take yet another set of stairs up.

“Only a little one.” He grumbles mulishly. “And I don’t see why you Gryffindors think it’s necessary to inform me of things that I am perfectly aware of all the time. You’d never catch a _Ravenclaw_ wasting my time like that.”

Or, Luna hadn’t at least, which was more or less the full extent of his experience with the house so far.

Hermione smiles, and he catches a bit of the shape in profile when she turns her head to look askance at him, eyes pleasantly warm and slightly overlarge teeth visible between her curved lips. “Sounds like you’ve already got a decent amount of house pride, that’s good. I think you’ll do wonderfully in Ravenclaw, Draco.”

Draco sniffs and turns his head so she can’t get a clear look at his face after hearing her reassurance. “Yes, well. Obviously.”

Her answering laugh is short and soft and shifts almost worryingly quick into a grimmer expression as she turns yet another corner with bald determination and a long easy stride that isn’t exactly easy for Draco to match next to her. “Maybe you’ll be a good influence on Harry and Ron and they’ll actually use their brains to _think_ every once in a while, goodness knows I have my hands full on my own.”

“Sorry, what.” Draco starts to stutter, but Hermione is honestly _running_ down the hall now and dragging Draco along with her, and despite all that she isn’t paying him any sort of mind because:

“ _There_ you are! Where have you _been_?” She’s spotted Harry and Ron, which was apparently her goal all along, and Draco honestly hasn’t the faintest idea why she had decided to drag him around like some sort of dousing rod and tell him ridiculous things.

“Can I have my hand back?” Draco asks in what he will steadfastly refuse to ever admit to as a plaintive tone, interrupting the three of them in the middle of whatever wholly unnecessary drama the three are playing out right now. And then regrets it almost immediately because now they’re all staring at him.

“Hermione, you’ve got a growth on your arm.” Weasley says, pulling a face, and Draco willfully resists the urge to stick out his tongue at the older boy. Settles for trying to squirm out of Hermione’s frankly terribly impressive grip instead.

She shoots the boy an appropriately quelling look though, so perhaps he’ll be generous and forgive her. “Thanks to your foolish actions _neither_ of you were at the feast to support him — or your _sister_ , Ron! — during the sorting ceremony.” She scolds them both, and while Harry actually appears to be ruffled by the accusation, the Weasel just gets more obstinate.

“What’s the point, everyone knows Malfoys get sorted into Slytherin.” He grumbles.

“Ravenclaw.” Draco says lowly.

“Huh?” Is Weasley’s eloquent and thoughtful response.

Which at least has the benefit of helping Draco muster up enough courage to glare hotly at him when he clarifies, “Not that it’s any of your business, and not that I’ll even be able to find it after this _terribly_ important detour, but I was sorted in Ravenclaw.”

“Yeah right,” Weasley laughs until he notices that Hermione isn’t laughing too, is standing with one hand on her hip and the other still wrapped around Draco’s wrist, which by the look on her face is the only thing keeping her from pulling her wand on the boy right now. His laughter trickles to an abrupt end and he goggles at Draco like the peasant he is. “You’re joking.” He says, and then, “but you’re a _Malfoy!_ ”

Draco’s lip curls. “So everyone keeps telling me. Are you all afraid I might forget?”

Harry laughs, and then shoots Weasley an apologetic look at the betrayed expression he makes, shrugging haplessly.

“ _Honestly_.” Hermione says with a roll of her eyes as she finally releases Draco only to push him forward towards the other two boys. Traitor. “I don’t see why you two feel the need to act like this with each other just because your dads do too, but I’m not going to just stand here and listen to you insult each other. Draco, I want you to apologize for what you said in Flourish and Blotts, it was cruel and you’re better than that.”

And now Draco was stuck, because if he argued with her, he would be insisting that he really _wasn’t_ better, and he was hardly going to admit to being inferior, now was he? “I’m awful at lying though.” He says, shooting Hermione a plaintive look.

Hermione’s expression is firm and unwavering.

“Ugghhh.” Draco says eloquently. “ _Fine_. I’m sorry I said those things in a public venue, it was hardly appropriate.” Probably not the sort of apology that the older girl was looking for, but the very best she was going to get right now, regardless.

“And Ron, I want you to promise to stop bullying poor Draco.” She continues after a moment, apparently satisfied.

“WHAT.” Weasley says shrilly.

Hermione just. Stares at him. Until the Weasel starts to twitch and slowly turn red, before ultimately ducking his head and muttering a low, “fine, _fine_ , ‘m sorry, okay?” and then in an instant she’s practically beaming at the two of them, even going so far as to reach out and ruffle his hair.

“I just got it looking _respectable_!” Draco bemoans, ducking quickly out of her nefarious grasp and reaching up to artfully sweep his hair back into place.

“Respectable, you?” Weasley snorts, and Draco and Hermione turn to stare at him almost in tandem, eyes narrowed dangerously. He pales and backpedals until he bumps up against a portrait of a large woman who scolds him for not looking where he’s going. “S-sorry.” He stutters out, and Draco can’t actually tell if he means him or the painting and at this point, frankly, he doesn’t really care.

He sighs heavily. “Not that this hasn’t all been terribly exciting, but I’m sure I can get insulted just as easily in my own house,” (chances were fairly good, in any case, he’d seen more than one displeased face at the table when he was sorted) “so I think I’ll be taking my leave now. Try not to assault too many painting Weasley, it’s hardly sporting, it’s not like they can run.” And he turns carefully on his heel, a perfect 180 until they’re all at his back, and begins to stalk away (he’s too annoyed to manage gliding right now, more’s the pity).

A sudden staccato of hurried footsteps picks up and Draco flinches before Harry’s voice reaches him with a, “hey, wait up, I’ll walk you back!” and Draco sighs regretfully down at the ground because he’d _almost_ managed to avoid this conversation entirely. Still, he’s managed to more or less cling to his dignity until now and it would be a pity to throw it all away by running from the savior of the wizarding world, so he pauses until Harry has caught up to his side and flashed him a grateful grin. “Thanks.”

“Harry!” Hermione shouts down the hallway at them and pushing a protesting Weasley through the open portrait hole. “The password is wattlebird!”

Draco stares between them in disbelief as Harry nods gratefully and Hermione disappears in the slow swing of the lady’s portrait. “Are you serious?” He demands as soon as they’ve cleared a corner and the likelihood of Draco being assaulted by random Gryffindors has diminished greatly.

“What?” Harry says, and Draco willfully resists the urge to take him by the shoulder and shake him.

“What do you figure the point of the common rooms having passwords is even about.” Draco asks in exasperation. “Just a clever little memory game to keep the students sharp?” The staircase they step on begins to shift slowly to the right and Harry startles slightly and clings to the railing near Draco’s elbow. Draco casually entertains the idea of patting him consolingly on the hand before distracting himself with adjusting his path back down to the great hall to account for the stairway shift and adding in a distracted tone, “it’s security to keep out marauding students from other houses with evil in their hearts and here you’ve just casually trod all over it.”

Harry doesn’t release his death grip on the balustrade or answer until they’re on solid, unmoving ground again, and then he’s shaking his head with a smile and declaring, “it’s just you, though.”

Draco stops short abruptly and Harry runs into his back with a quickly muttered apology. “I’m a _Malfoy_.” He tells the other boy slowly, just in case he’s missed that little fact up until now.

“I have no idea what that means.” Harry admits with a casual shrug, running a careless hand through his hair and somehow managing to make the birds nest atop his head even _more_ hopeless than it already is. “Except that, apparently, yours and Ron’s dad really don’t like each other.”

On top of saving the wizarding world, Harry Potter also apparently has a talent for understatement.

“Some would suggest,” Draco says as he stars down a new hall and very carefully does not look to make sure that Harry is following because then he might run the risk of accidentally meeting the older boy’s eyes, “that it means my heart is far more prone to be nursing evil in it.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Harry says hotly, increasing his pace until he’s knocking shoulders with Draco instead of trailing behind him. “You’re just a kid.”

“Thanks.” Draco says dully, suddenly depressed. He’s not sure if he prefers this feeling to the anxiety, yet.

“Not like _that_ , just…” Harry makes a frustrated sound in his throat and grabs Draco by the arm to drag him over to a rather dusty corner tucked in next to a suit of armor, forcing Draco to actually look at him when he says, “look, will you just let me apologize to you already?”

Draco laughs sharply only to realize a second later that the other boy isn’t joking. He eyes the pleading look on Harry’s face dubiously. “I’m not going to accept any apologies on your goon’s behalf.” He warns, eyes narrowed.

“Goon—wha— _Ron_?”

“Serf then, whatever you call him.”

“My… friend?”

Draco gives him a pitying look. “If you say so.”

Harry makes another grating noise and scrubs both hands through his hair to no real effect. “I really don’t understand what your issue with him is. Just because your _dads_ hate each other doesn’t mean you have to as well.”

Actually, it rather did, at least in Draco’s case. Rather than try explaining it though he simply scoffs and turns his head to one side and asks, “did you even bother to ask Weasley that too?” Weasley had started it, after all, even if Draco was far too attached to his dignity to actually say something like that.

“Of course.”

Draco makes the choice to turn his head back to look at Harry of his own volition this time, eyes widening in clear surprise.

“And anyway.” Harry continues before Draco is finished totally processing, “I didn’t want to talk about Ron right now, Hermione will deal with him.” Draco almost pities the Weasel for a moment. “I wanted to apologize for _me_. For not being honest about who I was from the beginning.”

“You weren’t exactly obligated to.” Draco admits grudgingly. “You don’t owe me anything, and it’s not like I was all that generous with my surname either.”

“I kind of _did_ owe you for getting me out of Knockturn Alley.” Harry points out, scratching at the side of his neck sheepishly.

Draco slaps his hand down without thinking, scolding, “stop that, people will think you have a rash,” and then staring down at his own hands in horror when his brain catches up with what his body just did.

Harry just _laughs_ , and Draco seriously contemplates slapping him again, cheeks burning. “What happened to trying to make a good impression on me?” He asks in good humor and Draco just glares silently at him for a moment before answering.

“There’s hardly any point in trying after that _display_ in Flourish and Blotts, is there?”

“What, your dad?” Harry stares almost guilelessly at Draco from behind his wide lenses. “We meant what we said back in the shop, you know. Even if you were a bit rude after, I understand why you felt you had to act like that.” His mouth turns down slightly in faint disapproval. “You should still apologize to Ron for real, though.”

“But I would be lying and I’m terrible at it.” Draco protests. “I really do loathe that family’s terrible spawn.”

Harry raises an eyebrow at him. “I saw you getting along pretty well with Ginny before, you know. You gave her a biscuit.”

“I’m still not totally convinced she’s not adopted.” Draco sniffs delicately. “Luna and I were going to attempt to recruit her as our Gryffindor spy, but there’s hardly even a point if you lot are going to be so wanton about your password.” And with that plan went his best excuse to his father for keeping in contact with the girl, too.

“Kind of pointless to have a spy if you’re just going to tell me about it.” Harry muses as he leads Draco back into the main hall and apparently decides to take over as navigator (which Draco isn’t going to contest because he’s not entirely certain that he hasn’t been leading them around in circles for a while now). “Spies are supposed to be a secret, right?”

Draco slows his steps enough to consider Harry’s thin, fragile looking back before answering. “You’re good at keeping secrets though. You didn’t tell Mr. Weasley about what my father was doing in Borgin and Burkes that day.” It didn’t exactly _look_ like the back of a national hero.

“I could have told him after you and your dad left.” Harry says as he slows his pace to match Draco’s again and looks askance at him.

“You didn’t.” Draco says with absolute certainty.

“I didn’t.” Harry agrees with a bob of his head. “I won’t tell anyone about your double agent either… if you agree to be my spy in Ravenclaw.” He finishes after a pointed pause, trying so hard to smirk at Draco that it’s almost charming in how very little it actually resembles the expression. Maybe Draco can coach him or something.

“There’s always a catch, isn’t there.” Draco sighs, shaking his head. “Fine, but I don’t know what you’re expecting out of a spy from the house that actively brought books to the sorting ceremony.”

“Maybe I just want your class notes.”

Draco squints at Harry warily. “You do remember that I’m a first year, right?” He asks.

“…oh. Right.”

“Oh dear.” Draco says.

 

* * *

 

Luna finds them before they manage to find the great hall again (which honestly does not bode well for his coming year and showing up to things on time, _why_ doesn’t this place have a map?)

“Did you have a good talk?” She asks with a smile, casually hooking her arm through Draco’s and diverting their path down a narrow hallway and up a thankfully unmoving staircase, Harry trailing after them for some strange reason.

“It was agonizing.” Draco tells her honestly, then to Harry: “are you lost? We’re not going back to your common room, you know. And I won’t be giving away our password quite so freely as you lot did your own.” And then immediately regrets the fact that it sounds like he’s trying to run Potter off.

Thankfully, Harry just looks amused. “I thought you were going to be my spy.” He says, and Luna gives them both curious looks but doesn’t say anything.

“Which is precisely why I refuse to give you the password.” Draco explains patiently, paying no mind to his surroundings and fully trusting Luna to navigate them successfully. “If you have free access to the common room, then you have no need for a spy.”

Luna makes a soft sound, hums and says, “The Ravenclaw common room… doesn’t have a password _per say_.”

“ _What,_ how do we keep out the rabble then?” Draco demands horrified. “Boiling oil, moats filled with crocodiles?” The resulting odd looks he gets from Luna and Harry makes Draqco think that things are perhaps not common installations in other people’s homes. Which is practically unthinkable to Draco, how else would one deal with solicitors? Polite conversation? _Ridiculous_.

“There’s a riddle.” Luna explains after a moment’s consideration. “You have to solve it to be let in.”

“That’s _ridiculous_!” Draco shouts, drawing the curious, startled gaze of two third year (judging by the texts in their hands anyway) Hufflepuffs before they skitter away. He doesn’t pay them any mind at all. “That’s hardly any kind of security, why, a Slytherin or particularly enterprising Hufflepuff could find their way inside should the fancy take them!”

Harry shoots him a mildly ruffled look and a lowly muttered, “Gee, thanks.”

Draco doesn’t even spare him a moment of concern. “I’m not going to lie about your house just to make you feel better.” He says dismissively.

“Huh, I guess you’re not trying to make a good impression anymore, are you?”

“Good impression?” Draco scoffs. “I know the password to your common room, I _own_ you.”

“I feel like this is why people are surprised that you didn’t get sorted into Slytherin.”

“It’s entirely possible.” Draco agrees in a voice that makes it clear he couldn’t care less. He certainly _could_ care less, but it wouldn’t do to let Harry know this. Whatever he might have told the other boy, he _was_ still trying to impress him.

“Oh look!” Luna says brightly, coming to a stop in an eerily familiar hallway. Next to an even more familiar portrait of a lady. Draco shoots her a sharp, startled look. “It’s your common room Harry, I think this is your stop!”

Harry darts a disconcerted look between the portrait and Luna for a moment before asking, “did you just… lead us around in a loop?”

“It seemed like you two still had more to talk about.” She says kindly. “But since Draco apparently wants to keep our password from you, I elected to take that a step forward and prevent you from discovering the location of our common room as well.”

Draco nods approvingly as Harry only stares at her, speechless. “I appreciate the initiative.” He tells her, waving Harry off with one hand as he joins arms with Luna with the other and starts back off down the hall with her, adding: “I think we should add additional protective measures to our common room to bolster the riddle, let’s brainstorm when we get back, er.” He frowns. “You _do_ know how to get back, don’t you?”

“Oh Draco.” Luna says, ushering him down a flight of stairs and then up another without even looking. “Of course I do.”

It was remarkably good fortune that she was on his side, really.


End file.
